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Binayak Bandyopadhyay (India)
My first Alphonso
On the top of four bricks on a sidewalk
At the second floor of a supermarket
In the basement of a shopping mall
On a pink or yellow tray
I discovered you;
Hey Everlasting Youth
By the curves of Ratnagiri, valley of Sahyadri
Leaned stood like a deep dark angel glowing from the branch of a certain tree
You had come to the Earth…
Without any gift to see your face for the first time
the Sun had to be covered up by the clouds for three days Without permission to touch your body with lips
one hundred and one birds became songless;
Filling up the jerry-can you took home
the water from Ganga as if the river herself
Being a part of the legend, you yourself a legend
For your root a separate bed was spread by the earth
For your branches and leaves
a different rain was poured by the cloud;
By what manner you on a Mumbai-Truck
inside lots and lots of straw
bending head in the cardboard box
came to Kolkata,
No one really knew your identity…
Within a crowd of Fazli, Langra, Himsagar
You being squeezed could the shopkeeper even imagine, Hidden within a thousand fruits You
not really a fruit,
Might be Sivaji Maharaj
who by showing a thumb-finger to the empire
snatched out his own state
Or might be Ajanta-Ellora
Cave walls that could be changed by those
on a canvas…
‘Canvas’ is an English word
Just like your name
But did it matter?
By looking at the road milestones
Iswarchandra Vidyasagar’s story for learning English
as much as Bengali
You that much as Indian
Or
As One Earth,
whose body got mingled with Eastern and Western hemispheres
That whose other namesake was heaven
A Mango
that could not be separated from the immortal nectar…
In exchange of a crispy one hundred rupee note
why are you in my grasp
Oh Alphonso
Aren’t you the ‘Journey-starter’ for the lame
‘Human Mother’ for Khairi
Brahmo Library’s ‘Dutta’,
Old man’s ‘Youthful memories’?
Like a pregnant widow
even if you retain a mourning outside
You chanted jubilation inside a cozy life…
That Life,
From the tongue to the lips, lips to the chin,
chin to the neck, neck to the hand,
From the hand trickled down to the bottom
and within yourself taking me
drowning and drowning to the abyss
where you had no other existence except one seed;
Where by standing,
with the lightning curve flashed out only one scenario-
for whom Nature put so much life-juice within
for sure Human would murder by sucking it dry without!
On the top of four bricks on a sidewalk
At the second floor of a supermarket
In the basement of a shopping mall
On a pink or yellow tray
I discovered you;
Hey Everlasting Youth
By the curves of Ratnagiri, valley of Sahyadri
Leaned stood like a deep dark angel glowing from the branch of a certain tree
You had come to the Earth…
Without any gift to see your face for the first time
the Sun had to be covered up by the clouds for three days Without permission to touch your body with lips
one hundred and one birds became songless;
Filling up the jerry-can you took home
the water from Ganga as if the river herself
Being a part of the legend, you yourself a legend
For your root a separate bed was spread by the earth
For your branches and leaves
a different rain was poured by the cloud;
By what manner you on a Mumbai-Truck
inside lots and lots of straw
bending head in the cardboard box
came to Kolkata,
No one really knew your identity…
Within a crowd of Fazli, Langra, Himsagar
You being squeezed could the shopkeeper even imagine, Hidden within a thousand fruits You
not really a fruit,
Might be Sivaji Maharaj
who by showing a thumb-finger to the empire
snatched out his own state
Or might be Ajanta-Ellora
Cave walls that could be changed by those
on a canvas…
‘Canvas’ is an English word
Just like your name
But did it matter?
By looking at the road milestones
Iswarchandra Vidyasagar’s story for learning English
as much as Bengali
You that much as Indian
Or
As One Earth,
whose body got mingled with Eastern and Western hemispheres
That whose other namesake was heaven
A Mango
that could not be separated from the immortal nectar…
In exchange of a crispy one hundred rupee note
why are you in my grasp
Oh Alphonso
Aren’t you the ‘Journey-starter’ for the lame
‘Human Mother’ for Khairi
Brahmo Library’s ‘Dutta’,
Old man’s ‘Youthful memories’?
Like a pregnant widow
even if you retain a mourning outside
You chanted jubilation inside a cozy life…
That Life,
From the tongue to the lips, lips to the chin,
chin to the neck, neck to the hand,
From the hand trickled down to the bottom
and within yourself taking me
drowning and drowning to the abyss
where you had no other existence except one seed;
Where by standing,
with the lightning curve flashed out only one scenario-
for whom Nature put so much life-juice within
for sure Human would murder by sucking it dry without!
